Take God out of the Box

Be strong and courageous

Do not quench the Spirit.  Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all; hold on to what is good. Reject every kind of evil. 

I Thessalonians 5; 19-22

A Box is made up of four sides, a bottom and a top or lid.  Once you have put something in the box and closed it you can’t use it or get it out.  You have to open the box.  

How many times have we put God in a box figuratively?  Every time we say I can’t do that…..

or It’s too much work…..

or It will cost too much…..

We don’t have enough help…..

We don’t want to get in trouble……etc. 

There are no guarantees that even when we do tackle something we will succeed.  

We might plan an event and be all prepared and when the time arrives for people to start showing up the blizzard of the decade sets in and no one shows up.  

Does that mean that the next time you worry and fret about the weather?  

I hope not.  

I don’t know anyone, but God who can control the weather.

Many of our bible characters put God in a box.  Moses said I am not an eloquent speaker Lord, send Aaron.  Moses was afraid that he would say the wrong thing, so he put God in a box. (Exodus 3).

Jonah put God in a box when he ran away from what God had called him to do in Nineveh.  

As you know Jonah ended up in the belly of a whale and if he hadn’t turned to God he would have died there, but he opened his box and went in Nineveh and did what God had told him to do. (Jonah 1-5)

Putting God in a box takes away the blessings we could have received, if we had only trusted God, just a little more.

David, in his younger years, trusted God completely.  

He faced Goliath, a Giant. He only had a slingshot and few small rocks. With God’s help, good aim, and a firm stance he defeated Goliath. (1 Samuel 17)  

Of course, later in life David forgot and put God in a box. He manipulated the situation with Bathsheba.  

He had her husband Uriah sent to the front of the battle, knowing full well that he would be killed, which he was, and that left Bathsheba free for him to take as his wife.  

Later they both suffered the great loss of a child.  But God forgave them and later blessed them with other children.

There are consequences to putting God in a Box, just like there are consequences to sin.  

God is in control and he will bless us if we allow Him to work through us and in us.

Prayer

Lord we come to you today asking for help.  We ask for your help to keep us strong, help us to have courage, and also to help us to not have fear.  Lord, we know that YOU have a plan for us.  We know that you knew us before we were ever born.  We know that you are awesome.  Help us to know that we are awesome too.  God we pray that you would help to open our eyes, heart, and mind to know that your plan for us is so much bigger then we could ever imagine.  We thank you for never losing sight in us.  We thank you for giving us the strength and courage to move forward, throughout every situation.  Lord we thank you for the sacrifices that you have made for us.  Thank you for everything. 

Amen

Will you pray with us?

Mankind throughout the world throughout our current situation

All Law enforcement and emergency response personnel

For all military personal serving our country and their families

Those in Leadership positions throughout the world

Devotional Written by Cindy Greer!

Thank you Cindy for giving us insight and wisdom!

*Bonus Verse: 

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.  John 14:26

Prayer

Lord, today we come to you with HAPPY hearts.  We are so grateful that you give us the opportunity to change the lives of those around us.  We are grateful that you give us the wisdom to change our lives and the lives of those around us.  And you make it so simple. We can do it with a single smile. God today I would ask that you help us to smile more. The next time we see someone down, help us to smile for them. The next time we are down, help us to remember that you gave us the best gift ever. The ability to know you, your son, and the holy spirit. God, we are so grateful for everything you give us.

We ask all these things in your Precious Son's Name

Amen

A Little More

 The other day I got a call from one of our clients.

I love talking to our clients so I always smile when I answer the phone.

“Hey Dan, one of my drivers is pulled over and they are saying that our permit doesn’t cover what we weigh. Isn’t that why we hire your team to make sure that these things don’t happen!”

My smile immediately vanished.

I was shocked because my team is amazing. and it’s not like them to miss something like 20,000 lbs on a permit.

So, I asked him, “Who have you been working with, and who was the one who called our team to get the permit?” 

To get to the bottom of the problem I needed the details.

They gave me the details.

My next call was to my team. Then after I got the details I got them started on getting new permits to get the problem fixed. I’m a solutions guy, not an excuses guy.

But I NEED to know the real reason why it happened so that we can fix the issue.

My next call was to the driver so that I could see exactly what happened.

I knew he was going to be upset. He was pulled over and they were going to give him a HUGE ticket. I wouldn’t be happy either.

so……

I made sure not to smile when I made the call.  I had a serious look on my face. As we chatted I learned that he was the person who gave his weight to our team. I asked where he got the weights from and how in the world they were off by over 20K lbs!

That’s when he told me that he might have gotten the wrong scale ticket from the weigh station where he originally weighed.

Immediately my heart leapt with joy, this is NOT our fault!

Now to get the problem resolved and get this driver back on the road was my only goal.  I was not going to assign blame or make anyone feel bad. 

Hey, we all make mistakes. I do it multiple times every single day.

The owner of the company shot me a text. I'm getting permits from the big guys. They won’t make these mistakes that cost me time and $$$$$.

No problem.  Let me know if you need anything. We are here to help.

Well……..

After they called the “BIG Guys” they called me about 30 minutes later.

Hey, we can’t get an Idaho permit until Monday. It’s Friday night. And we need to drop this load off tomorrow afternoon.

I told him that I would NOT make any promises.

But my team went to work!

Guess what????

We got the permits that the “BIG Guys” couldn’t get.

My team had the Idaho permit in less than 20 minutes. For the right weight this time.

Here’s the point of all this.

When things don’t go right, smile. I have taught my whole team this.

That right there is how we got the permits. They smiled as they worked and it didn’t take any time at all.

Ok, there might be a little knowledge that went into this too. Lol

Next time you need anything DOT, don’t call the “Big Guys” , call the team who can get it done!

Dan Greer